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A poem by Emma LaRocque
DURING READING:
Notice the literary devices and figurative language used in this poem to help convey her message.
"The Geese Over the City" is a shape poem. A shape poem, also called a
picture poem or, more formally, a calligram, is a poem which takes the shape of its subject. Writers who produce shape poems are as interested in how words look as in how they sound. To appreciate a shape
poem, it helps to put aside your usual ideas about language, and think about the poem as if it were a painting or a sculpture. Shape poems are sometimes referred to as concrete poems.
"The Geese Over the City"
by Emma LaRocque
In the city
One awakes to the sound
Of man-made mobility:
coughing motors,
clanging truck boxes,
wailing sirens,
tire screeches.
There are the treadmarks on my soul.
But this morning-day
Very early –
Even before the sun
made it through the October grey –
I heard the Geese,
the Geese,
the Geese ---
and in my half-sleep
I jumped up,
ready to run out and see
Their V-formation
as was the tradition
of the great northern Cree
But the sounds of some shifting gears
made me stop,
and aware that
the obstinate elm leaves,
electric wires
and too tall buildings
would not let me see,
let me see,
let me see –
so I fell back to sleep,
no, to reverie
I saw a little log-shack
full of family faces
all embraced
by a tangle tussle
of green-gold laces
And I smelled
the racy fragrance
of a widowed willow-leaf
etched with the earth
broken birch branch
and damp dew
ahh
Twice more
The Geese
went over the city
making me sad
that I could not see
making me happy
that I could not see
there was much Cree in me
despite
town height.
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